I received “The Night Child” as an advance reader copy from NetGalley. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Right away, I must acknowledge that I didn’t have the appropriate expectations when I picked up this book. From its description, I anticipated a psychological thriller from a somewhat unreliable narrator. This was partially accurate. What I did not expect, was the type and degree of childhood trauma lurking in the protagonist’s memories.

SPOILER ALERT: Triggers abound in “The Night Child.” If you are a reader that likes to know these up front then keep reading. If not, just be aware that Nora’s childhood made me weep and ache inside, particularly imagining that her story is a reality for many children.

If I had known “The Night Child” centered on childhood sexual abuse and incest I would not have chosen to read it. I consider myself a reader that dives into hard topics willingly (and quite often); however, in Nora’s case, readers are given a glimpse into the abuse firsthand through the eyes of a child. That’s not the kind of bedtime reading I enjoy.

However, I appreciated the tact used by Anna Quinn in describing the abuse. She did not sensationalize or attribute any emotions to it that might have distorted the abuse into something it wasn’t. The aftermath of Nora’s split personality seemed entirely plausible, and merciful, as a coping mechanism; Margaret cared for her and protected her when no one else could. While I have heard about this split personality disorder before, I have never seen it painted in a way that explains its usefulness in enduring trauma.

In addition to Nora’s childhood abuse, there are additional triggers, including: infidelity, suicide, alcoholism, and a particularly disturbing priest that acted completely inappropriately.

Overall, “The Night Child” was emotionally difficult to read, yet the themes were treated with respect by the author; her writing captivated me and kept me reading even when I didn’t want to.

The Night Child by Anna Quinn

This book was not what I had expected from reading all of the reviews. The story is told by Nora, an English teacher, she has a passion for her career and a real interest in her students. She has been married to Paul for 15 years, and they have a 6 year old daughter. She was raised in a very dysfunctional family and has many scars that have recessed in her mind. This is the story of how her subconscious helps her remember and try to overcome her anxieties, and other inadequacies she experiences. She has also had several very traumatic experiences throughout her lifetime which have made a profound impact on her. I found several sections of the book to be kind of creepy and unsettling, but the author does show how resilient human nature can be with the will to survive and overcome in order to have a full life filled with love and hope. I think this book would be geared to anyone interested in reading about the debilitating effect of past experiences and how your mind copes.
I want to thank Blackstone Publishing and Net Galley for allowing me the opportunity to read and review. Thank you.

I really enjoyed the opening of this book. It was eerie, atmospheric and the intriguing ghostliness began immediately.

However, I felt the pace dropped half-way through and I lost interest in the family saga the book became.

Anna Quinn is an accomplished writer and this book shows lots of promise but it just didn't manage to keep me engaged throughout.

THE NIGHT CHILD is an intense, thought-provoking, and, at times, disturbing novel. The main character, Nora, is suffering from hallucinations and a mental breakdown, as memories of her childhood traumas begin to surface thanks to a little girl named Margaret that begins appearing as a hallucination to her. Margaret later takes over Nora’s body so that she can tell Nora’s therapist that about how her father molested her as a child. With the help of her therapist, Nora is able to confront these past traumas.
Anna Quinn’s debut novel is beautifully written. She conveys Nora’s mental breakdown in a haunting manner. Quinn also takes us into Nora’s everyday life as a middle-school teacher, mother, and wife. Pressures from her home life and her job also play a role in what is going on in Nora’s life, and her family and coworkers also get swept up in her mental illness.
Overall, THE NIGHT CHILD is an emotional journey for not only Nora, but for the reader as well. It is easy to get swept up in the story. The main plot of Nora dealing with her mental illness and her past traumas keeps the reader turning the page, and the secondary plots are interesting as well.

The Night Child A Novel by Anna Quinn published by Blackstone Publishing was a great read. I was given an arc through Netgalley for an honest review.
The story is centered around Nora as she finishes teaching a high school English class, when something unexpected occurs she sees the face of a girl with startling blue eyes above the desks. She has yet to figure out if she has lost her minds or if she is seeing a ghost. As the author continues to unfold the story for us we realize that the past has finally caught up with Nora and the future is not on solid ground. This novel is well written but the topic makes it hard to read. Poor Nora needs to fix her fractured past in order to bloom in her future. A thriller with dark topics that everyone who wants to read something different should try this book. This is a 4 star read for me.

Reading the description for this book I was under the impression it was some kind of ghost story. I was very wrong. It veered into a very dark direction that I was not expecting. It wasn't a bad read it just wasn't what I was expecting. It deals with adult matters and conduct. Not sure if I would recommend this book or not.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.
A carefully nuanced dive inside the mind of a woman who is suffering from PTSD as the result of childhood sexual abuse. It is an emotionally intense read but it is very short. Probably this is a good thing since I don't think the author or the reader could sustain this much longer. None of the characters are particularly likable but I had great sympathy for Nora and found the unfolding of her story very engaging. An interesting look at how one woman dealt with sexual abuse as very young child. This is the theme of the book and it deals with other young women who were not able to cope. I liked that the end of the book left one with HOPE.

The Night Child tells the story of Nora, a gifted high school English teacher (I can tell this by her teaching style, not because we are told this in the book, but we are shown, and always better to show than tell ...) who fears she’s losing her mind when she begins seeing what appear to be an apparition of a young girl in a red dress.

Disturbed by these visions, which occur with increasing frequency, Nora finds David, a caring therapist, who one day out of the blue finds himself speaking to a young child, essentially one of Nora’s shadow selves, who reveals herself as Nora’s protector. He explains to Nora that when subjected to repeated trauma as children, some children find a way to dissociate themselves from abuse or whatever terrible thing happens to them as a way to minimize the horrific experience. By speaking to this protector, conveying her conversations with Nora, and prodding Nora to access her long-buried traumatic memories, Nora eventually learns and remembers what happened to her as a child, rid herself of inappropriate guilt, and reconnect with herself and her family, who have literally been caught in the crossfire of Nora’s disintegration.

Reading what I’ve just written, it sounds like a pretty trite and run-of-the-mill repressed memories story, but The Night Child is neither trite nor ordinary. I felt a strong connection to each character and a genuine desire for Nora to figure herself out. It’s a story of courage and humanity. I recommend it highly.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. I am under no obligation to write a positive review.

Although this book was not quite my cup of tea I did find that it was well written and most definitely well researched. The emotional aspects were wrote in a believable way, however I just was not able to fully connect with the book, both Nora as a character or the story in general. I would still be more than willing to try another book from this author at a later date.

I turned the pages, but there was nothing especially original here. The daughter was formulaic and at times the dialog seemed stilted. The plot is strongest in the scenes in which the protagonist is involved with her students. She seems much more human and connected with them than with her own family. Not a recommended read for bookclubs or holidays, but interesting for psych majors or those interested in PTSD.

Thank you to Anna Quinn and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of The Night Child. This novel tugged at my heart strings..I read this book in a day and a half I couldn't put it down. I have read many books on the topic of child abuse, but the author of The Night Child did such a wonderful job on describing the damage that it can do to you physically and emotionally.

The Night Child is an emotional journey into the main character Nora Brown's life, the secrets that she has kept not only from herself but the loved ones around her, the state of her mental and well being. This journey was nothing but heartbreaking for me, i felt for every character, even Nora's husband who i was not a fan of.

Nora Brown is a High School English teacher with a six year old daughter named Fiona. One day Nora sees a girl's face floating. She is alarmed and wondering if she has gone crazy. With multiple fears going through her mind she attempts to go on like normal, but while away on a trip with her husband and daughter, she sees the little girl's face again. The girl speaks to her on this occasion about a Valentine dress.Now even more alarmed, fearing she might be having a mental breakdown, she decides to seek medial advice and eventually meets with a psychiatrist. Together they slowly work out that Nora had been abused as a little girl and the girl in her vision is a character Nora has invented in a way with dealing with this tragedy.

Kudos to Anna Quinn on writing this beautifully well written story. A definite page-turner, this books will have you thinking even after you have finished it. Thanks again!

3 1/2 stars. Definitely not the story I was expecting. I thought this story about a difficult subject was well written and presented in a unique style. However, the character of Nora was hard to like.

I don't think that I'll be spoiling anything (it is telegraphed in the description) by saying that this book comes with a trigger warning.

Anna Quinn's The Night Child is an interesting psychological mystery that focuses on Nora Brown. Nora is a high school English teacher who has a sudden hallucination of a young girl that is accompanied by feelings of panic. She brushes this off and goes home to her six-year old daughter and her husband, Paul.

Unfortunately, the hallucination is just the start of the unraveling of Nora's life. She has been worried that her husband is having an affair and so feels little support from him. She begins therapy and we follow her as she begins to process why she keeps having hallucinations.

Quinn does a very good job of dealing with a heavy theme. I was interested in Nora's story and it was a quick read. I think that many will find this novel a worthwhile and emotional read. I'm giving it 3.5 stars because it felt a bit too sensationalized. It's an important story to tell, but (view spoiler)

Thanks to NetGalley, Blackstone Publishing, and Anna Quinn for the opportunity to read and review The Night Child.

PS I posted this to Goodreads directly, so that I could include a properly formatted spoiler.

That’s a topic you don’t do half assed. Really thoughtful and well written on the subject of abuse.

Anna Quinn is a brave writer. This wrenching debut novel occupies a place in literature that has lain dormant for decades; kudos to Quinn for bringing dark business out into the light of day for a good airing. I received my review copy free and early thanks to Net Galley and Blackstone Publishers. It will be available to the public January 30, 2018.

Nora is a high school teacher and the mother of a small child; her marriage is coming undone. Her mental health is a little on the shaky side, and she’s seeing a therapist to help her understand a terrifying vision that came to her in her classroom. A “wild numinous” face, the disembodied face of a child, floats over her students’ desks one day after school, and Nora panics. This face represents the core of Nora’s story, and once the layers of her outer self are peeled away, it makes for a deeply absorbing read.

Quinn takes some time to lay her groundwork. The first part of the story is unremarkable, and I briefly considered abandoning it. Character development seems limited to marital issues and time spent in therapy, and Nora lacks depth and originality until about the thirty percent mark. I tell you this lest you abandon the story yourself. It’s worth the wait, because once the story takes wing, it is hypnotic.

It’s tempting to say this novel is the twenty-first century’s answer to Sybil, but that doesn’t do it justice. Nora’s struggle to find the self that is held beneath layers and layers of emotional scar tissue, to heal herself so that she can be a good mother to Fiona, is one that we carry with us long after the book is over. Those that face serious mental health issues themselves will see vindication. Those that have family members or other loved ones working to unify a personality fragmented by trauma may see themselves as Paul, who’s juggling his own needs, those of his daughter, his love for Nora, and the crushing burnout that comes of living with a partner facing all-absorbing mental illness over a lengthy period of time.

Recommended to those interested in reading about mental health issues through the approachable medium of literary fiction.

3.5 stars. Very well written story about a difficult subject.

**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**

Content warning: child abuse, rape, mental illness, and alcoholism. This book dealt with a lot of very heavy issues that I didn't anticipate from the description, but the author did a great job of discussing them in a healing way. The protagonist, Nora, begins seeing the eyes and hearing the voice of a small girl that leads her to see a therapist, where she delves into her traumatic childhood. This was a heavy and heart wrenching read, but it's certainly a story that needs to be told.

This novel was not what I expected it to be; it was so much more! I imagined it would be somewhat of a ghost story, when in fact it's about a woman finding and coming to terms with her own haunted past. This book teaches us what we're capable of if we're brace enough to confront the most painful parts of ourselves.

This book was intense, powerful, emotional and raw. That being said it was wonderfully written and I am happy that I read it even if it was quite disturbing at times and left me emotionally drained.
I would read more from this author for sure. She is a talented storyteller.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a difficult book for me to read and I struggled to get into it. Not because of the writing but because there were few issues which came across as I read Nora's story.
Nora, a teacher, at the end of a tiring school day, suddenly sees a girl in front of her, who disappears. Blaming this on the fatigue, Nora carries on till she hears a whisper in her head. Fearful for herself and her daughter, Nora decides to see a therapist and she discovers things about herself.
Anna Quinn has written the darker issues of life in great detail, which was a bit difficult for me to read. All the characters played their parts aptly.
This book is not a psychological suspense, it depicts how a mind can suppress memories which can come out in shocking ways.
Our protective mechanisms always would want our brains to forget but it is in talking and bringing the secrets out in open, which heals the brains. This book brings home this simple fact. Anna Quinn in her debut novel has written about a very dark issue but an issue which is still present in our society.